Dubai sugar refinery halts work for 10 days

Dubai, February 4, 2013

The Al Khaleej Dubai refinery has briefly halted sugar processing as part of its routine "start-and-stop" strategy, its managing director Jamal Al Ghurair said on Monday.

Ghurair told Reuters on the sidelines of the Kingsman Dubai sugar conference that the refinery, which has a production capacity of 6,000 tonnes a day, halted operations last week and was likely to cease processing for about 10 days.

The refinery operates on a "start-and-stop" basis, briefly halting processing as silos fill.

Riad El Ferkh, refinery general manager, said at the plant later on Monday that white sugar silos were now full and he expected the refinery to resume processing of sugar when the silos became half full.

The main storage dome, with a capacity to hold one million tonnes of raw sugar, was roughly one third full.

The other three raw sugar silos, each having a storage capacity of 155,000 tonnes, were also now roughly one third full, El Ferkh said.